Two top Washington Post journalists are out with a stunning story Saturday morning, an inside look at President Donald Trump’s “risky push to reopen the country amid the coronavirus crisis.”
Robert Costa and Philip Rucker took a deep dive into this week’s developments, writing that “in private discussions, the president has been driven much more by economic concerns, according to people involved in internal debates or briefed on them. Trump has long viewed the stock market as a barometer for his own reelection hopes, and he has been distraught at the meltdown in recent weeks. He has been inundated with calls from business leaders, wealthy supporters and conservative allies urging him to get Americans back to work and stave off further calamity, even if doing so carries health risks.”
Then, this chilling insight from a former Trump official:
“There’s a fatalism that no matter what he does, he’s going to get blamed by half of the country,” said a former senior administration official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking. “If there is something he has some measure of control over, which is the economy, why not potentially try to take action? Yes, there will be a death toll, and he’ll get blamed one way or another, but in all likelihood, whether he gets reelected or not will depend on where the economy is and where people’s perceptions of the economy are six months from now. That’s where he is primarily focused.”
Read the entire story here.
Image: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour via Flickr